Get ready for super high ‘king tides’ this weekend

Marine sci nerds, time to get your geek on. The season of “king tides” – or extremely high tides – is upon us, in which the sun and moon’s gravitational pulls reinforce one another. They’re a natural phenomenon that happens once or twice a year, when the moon is closest to the earth.

Last year’s king tides temporarily flooded roads, parking lots and beaches in Washington, where they usually occur from late December to February.

The high-water events also give state ecologists a peek into how rising sea levels from climate change will affect the coast. That’s why the Department of Ecology is inviting people to send any king tide photos to a Flickr page. The project parallels other similar projects in California and British Columbia.

“While king tides are not caused by climate change, they do give us a pretty dramatic glimpse about what impacts sea level rise may have on Puget Sound and our outer coast,” the Department of Ecology said in its blog this week.

The University of Washington has projected that global climate change will cause Puget Sound’s sea level to rise by a mid-range estimate of six inches by 2050. That would likely magnify floods, shift beaches inland and threaten roads and utilities.

In Seattle, the next extreme tides are this Saturday at 7:45 a.m. and Sunday at 8:14 a.m. Tides are expected to be 12.2 to 12.3 feet. The next set of king tides will be January 23 to 25. See more local king tide predictions here.